A/N: FINALLY! The good stuff. (It ends a bit early though, just means a more exciting next chapter.) Hey, I can't brainstorm alone, Puzzlewumpkins. So I'm stretching the material as far as it will go. Besides, had to change it up a bit so you would be surprised! :D
Disclaimer: I'm not Jo Rowling, bless her caring heart. I'm not fit to wipe the Slytherin slime from the bottom of her boots as she stomps all over any student that dons the disgusting green robes. ^_^
In an unrelated note, I once played a character on TWC (The Wizard Chronicles) who was a Slytherin.
Chapter Nine
That stupid werewolf had to go and ruin it, Draco thought to himself as he had stormed away from the pair, just four days ago. It was Saturday, presently, and the weather had begun to get colder while the leaves began to shrivel and die on the branches from which they grew. The blonde boy was angrily storming about the grounds, looking for anything or anyone to take out his frustration on. Unluckily for him, it seemed none of his 'schoolmates' could bear the cold as he did, and therefore the rest of the weakling students remained indoors on this chilly, November day.
Four days previous, Draco was on the precipice of finally confessing to Kismet exactly how he felt. Unfortunately for him, the filthy Gryffindor beast had chosen that exact moment to interrupt what was sure to be a most important conversation between himself and the stubborn brunette that, he admitted only inside his head, had stolen his cold, blackened heart.
"Oi, you!" An arrogant voice called from behind, obviously aimed at him. He glanced around the area ahead surrounding his current route, saw no one, and began to walk away from the source of sound.
"Oi! Blonde bloke!" He heard a second voice, closer this time, and knew who it was immediately. The stupid idiotic Gryffindor's tone exactly matched that of his son's. James Potter, and probably his annoying 'Uncle' Sirius were following closely, attempting to get his attention. Knowing neither were much of a threat to his obvious superiority, he stopped and began to turn to face them. Just in case, though, his hand drifted to his robes' pocket where he kept his wand.
"What is it?" he asked in a dull tone. He was neither aggravated or, obviously, glad to see the pair.
"How would you like to take part in a very rewarding edeavour, mate?" Black said with a smile, his shoulder-length hair swishing about as he moved forward to place an arm around Draco's shoulders. The blonde immediately moved, slipping the Gryffindor's grip using a maneuver Kismet had once used on him.
Unaffected by the obvious rebuttal, Black pressed on, "We know that you and Vangley are constantly at each other's throats," as he paused, Potter nodded his head in agreement, looking every bit the imbecile Draco knew his son to be. Continuing, Black said, "We also know you can get under the girl's skin. Easily. We are here to offer you a once in a lifetime chance to join forces with the Marauders." As he said it, the two spread their arms in a show of Ta-Da, and shook their hands, as if ending a musical number.
Draco stared at the duo in blatant disinterest, then walked away.
"Wait!" called Potter's voice. "Come back! You haven't accepted yet!"
Stupid twits, the blonde boy thought to himself. What a waste of my time. As if any of my precious life could be wasted upon something so frivolous...so idiotic!
"Think he'll come 'round?" James asked of Sirius as they watched the Slytherin walk away.
Nodding his head in assurance, Sirius replied with a smirk, "oh, he'll come 'round."
-X-X-X-X-X-
"Good morning Prude."
Jayden yawned as she sat down to breakfast with Kismet, pouring herself a cup of tea and adding seven spoonfuls of sugar. Who needs coffee? she thought with a smile.
"What's so good about it?" asked Kismet conversationally, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
Jayden shrugged, "No Marauders yet?"
"Good. It's too freaking early."
"Count your blessings then." The two girls finished their breakfast in companionable silence, only bothering to speak when Sirenity, who was always a late riser, sauntered up to the table with a smile.
"Morning girls!" she exclaimed, stretching her arms out as she beamed through a yawn.
"Why so perky?" grumbled Jayden between bites of her oatmeal.
"I don't know..." trailed off Siren as she thought, "I just have a good feeling about today."
Kismet scowled as she looked at her watch, "Not me. I hate classes. Nothing good about class this early in the morning. See you both later."
"Bye," chorused the two girls as Kismet grabbed her bag and left the table. No sooner had she exited the Great Hall, as she passed a statue of Henry-the-seven-fingered-whatever, that her bag split clean open, spilling all manner of ink bottles, potions' ingredients, and makeup all over her books and parchement.
"What the-" she groaned as she bent down to gather her things. She cast a quick reparo charm on her bag before hoisting it, grabbing her stuff as quickly as possible, and hauling herself and her belongings to Potions, barely making it through the doorway before Slughorn locked her out.
"Miss Vangley!" he exclaimed, allowing her to squeeze by his large stomach, "Do be careful now, tardiness will not be tolerated in my classroom."
"I'm here, alright?" Kismet mumbled under her breath in anger, sitting down at the only available table, unfortunately next to Malfoy. She glanced across the room, unable to meet his gaze while her stomach was flipping and her cheeks burned hot. Eventually, class began as normal, and she calmed her nerves over rushing and sitting next to the infurating blonde male. The students were working separately today, concocting a potion to stop infection after coming in contact with a poisonous frugglepod. As the liquid in her cauldron simmered, Kismet began to come across part of the directions that had been doused in ink from when her bag had split, and the words were ilegible. She squinted, attempting to make out the words on the pages, and wondering if she could ask Malfoy to see his-no. She would not ask him for help! Instead, she decided she would wing it.
A loud, echoing sound reverberated the classroom, causing students to look up and several to drop whatever they were holding. A series of clatters sounded as this occured, and a cloud of smoke was slowly clearing as the occupants of the classroom began to cough and wave their hands in front of their faces.
"Miss Vangley!" boomed Professor Slughorn as he pulled out his wand, attempting to clear the smog from in front of him, covering his mouth and nose. He moved slowly toward the source of the explosion, watching as a shape emerged from behind the smoke, coughing along with the rest of his students.
"Blast and damn!" she exclaimed, holding her face in her hands as she staggered toward the sound of the professor's voice.
Slughorn raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Miss Vangley, do report to the Hospital Wing post-haste! It seems you've grown a bit of fur on your face. Best to have Madam Pomfrey right you again!"
Kismet looked up, clutching her head in horror, "F-Fur?"
Not bothering to grab her things, the brunette ran from the classroom, vowing to take revenge on everyone that she heard snickering as she fled.
Worst day ever! she thought as she fled the dungeons in search of the Hospital Wing.
-X-X-X-X-X-
Dear Jayden Love,
Come find me please. I need your help.
I've been kidnapped. I'm in a dark room, once again tied to a chair, though this time there's no Kismet or Sirenity to be found. Please come find me. Someone says to tell you I'm in danger.
Love,
Bryar.
If you want to see your boyfriend alive, follow the pretty mermaid's gaze through the red and green maze.
The first note that magically appeared on her lap as she sat in the common room during free period was clearly Bryar's handwriting, Jayden was sure. After all, she had his original paper from their first meeting. The second was charmed, obviously, to hide the sender's identity. No spell she attempted gave her any indication as to who could've sent it.
Someone was messing with her, she knew it. It had to be someone close enough to know, or at least think she was actually with Bryar. Either way, she had to find him. It wasn't his fault he was caught up in this, it was hers. She had to fix this.
"Right then," she mumbled to herself, a knot of worry developing in her midsection. "Whore first."
Luckily, her blonde sister chose that moment to enter the classroom.
"We need to talk," said Siren, eyes downcast as she sat beside Jayden on the loveseat.
Jay's heart leapt instantly. Could it be that easy? Siren's always been the first to succumb to guilt after all.
After a moment, the blonde sister continued, "I know that you're the one that got James and I together," Jayden's heart sunk as the knot got bigger, if possible, "and thank you. But I really think we're better suited as friends... So I broke it off."
"Siren, Bryar is... Did you just say you broke it off with James?" Jayden's mouth dropped open of its own accord. How much could one day handle?
"It's okay, because there's someone else. I'm actually growing fond of Sirius."
"Yeah, about tha-"
"And he's actually really sweet. The other day he-"
And she was off. Jayden rarely ever had a word in edge-wise when this occured. However, today something important weighed on her mind.
"Sirenity Mae Cortez. Shut up about Black and tell me where the hell my non-boyfriend is."
Sirenity looked a bit surprised, her eyes widening. "Bryar? Why should I know? And did you say 'non?'"
Jayden sighed as she stood from the sofa, glancing around the room and noticing something odd. "I'll explain later. Right now, I have to find Bryar."
"Jay-"
"See you sister," she called as she stepped through the portrait hole into the corridor outside Gryffindor Tower. She was on high alert, searching everywhere she went for suspect number 2, though one thought nagged at the back of her mind as she sped up to find Kismet.
The Marauders were in the common room, all except for James.
-X-X-X-X-X-
Kismet wanted the day to end.
After the nurse had undone whatever the potion had backfired onto her face with, the brunette stomped angrily down the corridor, struggling to keep her breathing even.
"Kismet?" a voice called behind her as she wandered aimlessly through the school.
Jayden appeared at her side, touching her arm to tell her silently to stop.
"What?" the brunette spat angrily, pulling her arm away.
"I have to tell you something."
"Well what is it then?"
"Bryar's missing."
-X-X-X-X-X-
The two girls had reached the kitchens, which seemed the perfect place to duck out of class for the day.
"-and I'm so not going back. Not today. Though I guess it could be worse. I'm not missing a boyfriend, after all."
"No, yours is just off somewhere sniggering into a book about how much of a ruckus you caused in Potions," Jayden countered, her shaking hands gripping a mug of hot chamomille tea.
Kismet shrugged, taking a bite of the chocolate pie she'd gotten, then holding out her hand. After she'd swallowed, she said, "Well, let's see the ransom letter."
Jayden reached into her bag and pulled out the two notes she'd received earlier that morning.
As Kismet's eyes scanned the first, the brunette chuckled, "We only did it once." When she reached the second note, her eyes narrowed. "Mermaid's gaze through the red and green maze? So, go to the lake on Christmas, then?"
"It doesn't matter what it means, Kiss," Jayden said as she snatched the pieces of parchement back. "The fact is, someone's got Bryar!"
"Yeah, and you're not getting him back unless you follow the trail," Kismet spat back. "Looks like you're being led on a wild goose chase for the amusement of some Ravenclaw-napper. Why they'd even want him, I don't know, but you don't have any suspects left."
"Well, there's one. James hasn't been seen by my eyes today."
"And neither has Bryar?" asked Kismet.
Jayden shook her head slowly, a small frown in place.
"Well, looks like we're gonna have to find the remaining Marauders and see what they know."
Jayden glanced at the time. "Almost lunch time."
Kismet stood quickly, a grin plastered on her face, "Good. I'm starving."
"How can you be starving? You just had three pieces of pie!"
"Chocolate only goes so far, Betch."
-X-X-X-X-X-
The pair of friends entered the Great Hall, shortly after the Marauders sat down to eat.
"There they are," pointed out Jay as she pulled Kismet behind.
"Looks like Potter's with them, though," Kismet said unhelpfully.
"Don't care. He's the only suspect left."
The two girls stormed their way up to the four seemingly nonchalant boys, laughing at some joke Sirius had just told. As Jayden neared the others, she noticed Remus looking up nervously from his plate.
"Alright, joke's over. Where the hell is my boyfriend?" she said forcefully, hands on her hips in a stance of defiance.
"What are you on about, Millsap?" asked James as he lazily looked up from his pumpkin juice.
Jayden decided he wasn't taking her seriously enough. Glancing around to make sure no teachers had yet arrived, she whipped out her wand and turned James Potter into a low-hanging chandelier, his belt hanging onto an invisible hook in midair.
"I said, where's my boyfriend."
"I don't know," he said, shrugging one shoulder, "Have you checked his House Table?"
"Of course I have-" she paused, not taking her eyes from James's, "Kismet, is Bryar in the Great Hall?"
Kismet cast a cursory glance about the room, simply for show, though she did glance twice at a male that looked almost the same, though he was a Hufflepuff. "No, he isn't."
Jayden nodded, glancing at the boy dangling in front of her, "Last time, James. Where's my boyfriend?"
"Not with me."
Dropping the spell, and therefore James, Jayden turned on one heel and stalked from the Gryffindor Table. Kismet watched as James landed in a heap of limbs into his lunch and laughed as Sirius slid his finger along his best friend's face, tasting the food.
"I love steak and kidney pie," he said.
Turning, the brunette made to follow her friend out of the Hall, and ran right into Draco Malfoy.
They both fell to the ground, her backpack landing on the floor between them.
"Again?" she exclaimed, rubbing her head where they'd connected.
"If you'd just watch your steps, Vangley," he murmured, nursing his chin, "then this wouldn't happen."
"Oh I'll watch my steps, Malfoy," she sneered as she quickly stood, grabbing her things in the process, and stepped onto his stomach hard, walking over him to the corridor outside the Great Hall. "I'll watch them as I walk right over you."
Draco watched her walk away, his breath slowly coming back to him, as he made to stand, a hand was thrust in front of his face.
"Need a hand, mate?" asked Sirius Black as he looked up.
"No thanks," Draco waved his own hand in impatience, shaking his head as he stood. "Though, I would like to take you up on your previous offer..."
-X-X-X-X-X-
-X-X-X-X-X-
Kismet's bad day continued. Just after her fight with Malfoy, she attempted to find Jayden, though her redhead friend was nowhere to be seen. She attempted checking all the bathrooms, effectively getting sprayed with toilet water by a ghost in the girl's room on the second floor, which startled her enough to attempt running backward out the door, stepping on the caretaker's cat's tail which caused the cat to scratch every piece of skin Kismet had left exposed, and when she attempted to do her homework in the library, someone thought it funny to charm her ink pot to begin singing the opera as it spit ink in every direction, apparently ruining several rare books and ticking off the librarian so much that Kismet was henceforth banned until further notice.
If she didn't know who Karma was she'd seriously consider punching her.
In fact, it was time she went to check on her two friends, just to be sure. Maybe they'd protect her from anything too awful happening.
She stood in front of the Fat Lady, with arms crossed, waiting for someone to come out.
"You're a Slytherin, are you not? What business do you have here, child of the House of Snakes?"
The only trouble was, the stupid portrait kept attempting to find out what nefarious purposes she had with her precious Gryffindor children.
Kismet was just about to give up and try somewhere else when the portrait slowly swung forward.
"Sirenity!" she exclaimed, oddly glad to see her flirtatious friend. Something seemed a bit off though, Siren wasn't really focused.
"What? Oh. Hey." the blond girl said, murmuring distractedly as she made her way down the stairs.
"Wait! Where are you going, Whore?" asked Kismet as she trailed after the taller girl.
"Going? Going..." Siren thought for a moment, attempting to remember where she'd been headed. There was something she had to do... She had to prove her worth somewhere.
"Sirenity, focus!"
"I'm going... I have to find... Myself," she finally said, turning to descend the stairwell.
"Oh crap! Sinwell's got you brainwashed into believing in Divination, hasn't he!"
"Divi-no. I have to go... Goodbye Kismet."
"You're not going anywhere," Kismet pulled out her wand, just about to curse her friend into staying still so she could find help, when a soft voice entered into the back of her mind.
Let her go. She isn't worth it.
Slowly, Kismet lowered her wand, wondering where that came from. She didn't notice as her friend slipped away down the stairs, finally, making it to the floor below.
She isn't worth it. The voice came again. But you, you're a prize to be had. Best family bloodline anyone's come across. You ought to be proud.
"Proud?" she said aloud, realizing how silly she sounded, speaking to someone inside her head.
Though, the voice seemed to have heard anyway. Proud. Bold. Intelligent. Ambitious. All traits you should display.
Display? What's going on? she thought, narrowing her eyes as she concentrated on all the voice was saying.
Come. Prove your wor-
"Kismet!" Jayden was waving a hand in front of her face. The brunette shook her head, ending the trance, and forgetting all about what had just occured.
"What's up?"
"I think I know where to find Bryar!"
-X-X-X-X-X-
The two girls ran down the stairs, stopping two landings down outside the Prefect's bathroom on the fifth floor.
Panting, Kismet looked up, "So, what's the plan?"
"We have to wait five minutes. Then, the second year Gryffindors and Slytherins will come out of Charms, just across from the bathroom. I'll leave the door open, and wait for the picture of the mermaid to point me in the right direction!" Jayden finished with a bit of a gleam in her eye, smiling wide.
"Okay," Kismet said slowly, "Then what?"
"Hopefully, she'll point in the direction of a door, and I'll storm in and go all Karmagous on whoever's behind it!"
Kismet blinked. "Okay, you need to sit down. I think this whole Bryar thing is messing with your hea-"
A door down the hall opened, spilling out a sea of red and green as students walked toward them, carrying books and parchement and quills.
Laughing maniacally, Jayden opened the door to the bathroom behind them, watching the picture of the mermaid intently. As soon as the first of the second years passed, Jayden jumped. "There!" She exclaimed, pointing down the hall where the students had come, toward a blank wall.
Kismet followed her friend to the wall, standing in front of it and wondering why both her close friends had suddenly gone insane. As she watched, Jayden suddenly began pacing, muttering in frustration. AFter the third pass, she stopped in front of Kismet, sliding down the wall with her head in her hands.
"Jayden?" said Kismet in shock as she looked at the wall behind the redhead. "Jayden, get up."
"No! I thought it was here. It was a long shot, but I'm no good at riddles and-"
"Jay, no! You did it! There's a door here!"
"What!" Jayden scrambled to get up, pushing off the floor with her hands. As she neared the door, placing a finger on the handle, she turned back to Kismet.
"Thanks for coming with me. I'll see you afterwards."
"What? You think I'm turning around now? No way, it could be dangerous!" she said, shocked that her friend would think it wouldn't be.
"Well, let's see it then."
The redheaded girl turned the handle of the door, and the two best friends stepped into the darkness.
-X-X-X-X-X-
A/N: Well, it ended differently than I thought it would... But I've been holding out long enough. Here's your chapter. I'll have another up before July 16th (that's when I'm coming home!) hopefully. You're WELCOME!